Yesler Terrace: Seattle’s new urban neighborhood

The 561 housing units at Yesler Terrace, dating from World War II, have done their job well. In the next few years, an aging, low-income Seattle housing project will become a national model in how to build a multi-income neighborhood.

Sen. Patty Murray: “This project is near and dear to my heart.”

Reworking a title from Hillary Clinton’s mid-1990s book, visiting U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan said of Seattle’s project: “It takes a village to rebuild a village, and that is what is happening here.”

The project involves a $500 million investment, but was seeded by $30 million in Choice Neighborhood Grants from HUD.

As Yesler Terrace is replaced, Seattle will see a new neighborhood that’s anything but a place to which the poor are shunted and isolated. Its housing will include:

— 561 units to serve residents with incomes below 30 percent of the Area Median Income (AMI), replacing existing low-income units on a one-to-one basis. The average income of Yesler Terrace residents is about $14,000 a year.

— 290 apartments serving residents with incomes below 60 percent of the AMI, and an additional 850 apartments to serve residents with incomes below 80 percent of AMI, including people who may work in downtown Seattle at low-wage jobs.

— Up to 3,199 housing units at market rate, some with views to Mount Rainier.

The housing is combined with intensive work to improve the neighborhood’s Bailey Gatzert Elementary School, and programs at Harborview Medical Center designed to “bridge the gap between people who live in the community and people who work in the community,” in the words of a Harborview spokeswoman.

“Housing is a silent issue in this nation,” Murray said.

The nation holds more than 4,000 neighborhoods that face the challenge of concentrated poverty. “The odds are stacked against kids in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty,” said Donovan.

By 2020, as envisioned by the Seattle Housing Authority, the Yesler neighborhood will offer easy access to major nearby employers (Harborview, Seattle University), streetcar access to major transportation hubs, easy walking to shopping and housing for families of all income levels.

“From my point of view,” said Donovan, “this is as innovative, comprehensive and creative a project as I have seen, not only in this country, but in the world.”

It was a day for high hopes and high views. Mount Rainier emerged from the clouds for the visiting cabinet secretary.